Written by

Kirk Moore

@KirkMooreAPP

New preliminary flood hazard maps for Ocean County have been issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency — basically setting a blueprint for post-superstorm Sandy redevelopment along the ocean and Barnegat Bay.

Formally known as flood insurance rate maps, or FIRMs, the charts outline areas and list the maximum expected high water from a strong storm with a 1 percent chance of hitting in any given year, so-called 100-year storms. They are among the earliest products of a nationwide program to update flood mapping.

FEMA officials said the heights now shown are the same as the last versions of their preliminary work maps. When those drawings first came out, they alarmed municipal officials in towns such as Toms River, Long Beach Township and Stafford, who saw some streets newly placed in the velocity or V zone, indicating potential for high waves, even where they did not see those effects from Sandy.

That would have forced some homeowners to build to higher and more expensive standards, local officials argued, producing their own engineers’ reports to FEMA. That process over months resulted in some changes to the maps.

smart.gov. Links on those pages take readers to large-scale key maps, where they can zoom in on the image and get map file numbers to view neighborhood FIRMs.

The map release is the first step in a federal regulatory review that now moves into a 90-day appeal and public comment period this spring, FEMA officials said. That’s when towns, property owners and other groups can appeal maps by submitting technical documents through local government flood plain managers.

After appeals are resolved, FEMA will issue a “letter of final determination” and in six months the maps would become effective, expected sometime in 2015. That’s when the new maps will be used to determine flood insurance rates.